Bankruptcies filed in P.R. soar in September, with 160% more cases on record
Puerto Rico’s bankruptcy court saw major activity in September, when 661 cases were filed, representing a 160 percent year-over-year increase, according to data compiled by research firm Boletín de Puerto Rico.
The report showed that 254 petitions were filed to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court during September of 2017.
However, the report also confirmed that bankruptcy petitions filed between January and September 2018 have dropped by 11.3 percent, when compared to the same period last year. So far this year, 5,764 cases have been submitted to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Boletín de Puerto Rico confirmed.
The report showed increased activity in three of the four categories, with a marked jump in Chapter 11 cases, with 11 on record for September, reflecting a 450 percent increase when compared to the same month in 2017.
When broken down, the majority of the cases, or 382, were filed under the Chapter 13 category, which gives individuals the chance to reorganize their finances. That represents a 126 percent increase from the same month, the prior year.
Coming in second are the 267 Chapter 7 filings, or total liquidation cases, tallied in September. That figure is 221 percent higher than those on record for September 2017. Meanwhile, a single farming operations filed for Chapter 12 protection in September, a category that is reserved exclusively for troubled agriculture businesses.